People always talk about how great the Harrier is in dogfighting - two problems with that - one, modern air superiority fighters carry advanced radar systems (e.g., the F-15, the Russian Mig 25 and more recent planes) and don't need to dogfight, they track a plane on radar from long distance and shoot them down with missiles. At closer ranges, or when the terrain interferes with the radar, infrared missiles are used. You only need to get a general lock up of the target aircraft for the infrared missiles to work, so only a small amount of dogfighting capability is needed. As maneuverable as it is, I doubt the Harrier can dodge missiles. Shooting down a plane at close range with cannons after winning a dogfight has become increasingly uncommon.
The enthusiasts of the Harrier have to remember that the Brits were not fighting a first rate armed forces in the Falklands - the Argentines were definitely second rate in their technology - barely a cut above the third rate Iraqis.
Remember, the Argentines were still using A4 Skyhawks to DIVE BOMB the British Navy, that's right, diving right through walls of flak, with iron dive bombing sights, a la WWII dive bombers. No standoff bomb guidance systems, no smart weapons (other than the Exocet) at all, NOT EVEN ANY AIR TO AIR MISSILES, and they still managed to break through and sink several destroyers. Where were the Harriers? Some of the Argentine dive bombers were shot down by Harriers AFTER dropping their bombs - great, wouldn't it have been better to shoot the Argentines down BEFORE they dropped their bombs?
Modern air defense and air superiority has so much more to do these days with great radar coverage and radar guided shoot-down systems, not how well a fighter plane can dogfight.
This is probably what doomed the F-22. So what if the plane is faster than the F-35 and more maneuverable? Doesn't mean anything if the enemy plane has great radar and a great missile system to shoot it down.
And so it isn't clear to me that the British Navy got themselves such a great fleet defense system with the Harrier. For fleet defense, you need something like the F-14, which had this powerful radar that was almost like a mini-AWACS system, and long range missiles to take out the enemy fighter BEFORE they can launch their Exocet missiles or whatever. The Harrier did not have such a great radar system or long range missile system. And neither did the British ships in the Falklands, for that matter.
The U.S. Marines never used the Harrier for dogfighting - they were using it for GROUND SUPPORT! And the Harrier is absolutely the worst aircraft in the world for ground support - easy to shoot down, it's engine exhausts in mid-fuselage mean death for the pilot if hit by an infrared guided missile, very poor payload capacity, very complex to maintain in a battlefield setting. The best aircraft in the world for ground support? Probably still the A-10. Very cheap too. The Marines could have bought themselves a whole bunch of A-10's for the price of the Harrier program. The Marines have NEVER been able to fully utilize the STOVL capability of the Harriers - they really couldn't, to carry a decent payload, the Harriers needed a runway.
So, yeah, bad idea, the Marines should get themselves some of those very unsexy, but very capable A-10s.
As for the F-35, yeah, Lockheed bought the technology for the lift fan from the Yakolev Design Bureau, secretly, in 1991 after the Soviet Union broke up and went bankrupt, and every Soviet agency was left to fend for themselves for money. Supposedly paid $400million for it. Highly doubtful that the Russian Empire of Vladmir Putin would allow this sort of technology transfer today.
It was worth it. The F-35 stunned everybody by having a flawless vertical flight during its fly-off with Boeing's F-32, and was also able to transition directly into supersonic flight, something the F-32 STOVL version could not yet do.
